Methods and apparatus to provide dynamic messaging services

ABSTRACT

Methods and apparatus to provide dynamic messaging services are disclosed. An example method includes determining, in a pre-boot environment, supported dimensions for display of information on the display screen; generating, in the pre-boot environment, restricted dimensions that are less than the supported dimensions; providing the restricted dimensions to an operating system of a virtual machine supported by a virtual machine manager, wherein the restricted dimensions define a boundary between a first screen portion and a second screen portion; displaying first information in the first screen portion and displaying second information in the second screen portion; and preventing, via the virtual machine manager, elimination of the first screen portion from the display screen.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure pertains to processing systems and, moreparticularly, to methods and apparatus to provide dynamic messagingservices.

BACKGROUND

Browsing networks, such as the Internet (also referred to as the“world-wide-web” or the “web”), for information has become a verypopular technique for carrying out research activities. The Internetincludes servers providing numerous sources of information for almostevery topic imaginable. In addition to research activities, browsingInternet sites, which is commonly referred to as Internet surfing, hasbecome a popular pastime.

Browsing Internet sites has achieved such a cultural status that publiclibraries and other publicly available resources now provide numerousterminals at which Internet browsing may be carried out. Additionally,many commercial establishments now provide web browsing capabilities.Internet cafés (I-Cafés) provide network connections to the Internetwhile patrons enjoy other products provided by the business. Forexample, a coffee shop or other business may include I-caféfunctionality so that customers can browse the Internet while they enjoytheir coffee. Furthermore, Internet access is now usually available athotels.

In general, it is desirable to provide additional or auxiliaryinformation to persons browsing the Internet. This information may takemany forms, such as information on local events, alerts, or advertising.As will be readily appreciated by those having ordinary skill in theart, pop-up advertising in one popular technique for providingadvertisements to persons browsing Internet web sites. For example, whena user directs his or her browser-equipped personal computer to logon toa desired web site to view requested information or content, the desiredweb site may cause the browser in use to open an additional pop-upwindow in which an advertisement is displayed. The user must then closethe window including advertisement to resume viewing the desiredcontent.

Many users find pop-up advertisements irritating. To that end, a numberof software tools have been created to stop the occurrence of pop-upadvertisements. These software tools are commonly referred to as pop-upblockers, and may reside on web browser tool bars or other convenientlocations that enable users to selectively invoke the pop-up blockingfeature.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of an example network computing system.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram representing the functionality of one exampleimplementation of a dynamic messaging service.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of example software layering that may beincluded within the terminal of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an example power-up process that may becarried out by the terminal of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an example virtual machine manager (VMM)information handling process.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an example operating system (OS) cursormanagement process.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example VMM cursor management process.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an example processor system on which theprocesses of FIGS. 4-7 may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As described below, a portion of a computer system or terminal displayscreen may be allocated for display of information other thaninformation requested by the user. This allocated portion of the displayscreen may be used for auxiliary content or information, such as, forexample, advertisements that may be used to defray the cost of a networkadministrator (e.g., the administrator providing the terminal with whichthe display screen is associated). The allocation of the display screento include portions of the display of both request content orinformation (e.g., or requested web page and auxiliary content orinformation, may be carried out at software/firmware architecture levelof the terminal that is not accessible by an end user of the computersystem or terminal. Accordingly, the allocated portion of the displayscreen may not be eliminated through actions of the user of the displayscreen.

As shown in FIG. 1, an example network computing system 100 generallyincludes a terminal 102 and a server 104. The terminal 102 and theserver 104 may be coupled by one or more networks 106, 108. For example,the network 106 may be a local area network (LAN) or some other networkconfiguration. The network 108 may be a network such as the Internet,which is also referred to as the World Wide Web. As will be readilyappreciated by those having ordinary skill in the relevant art, otherinformation sources such as computers, servers, and the like, may becoupled to the network 108.

In further detail, the terminal 102 includes a display screen 110 and aprocessing portion 112. As will be readily appreciated by those havingordinary skill in the art, the display screen 110 may be any displayscreen suitable to provide visual information to a viewer. For example,the display screen 110 may be a cathode ray tube (CRT), a liquid crystaldisplay (LCD), or a display of any other suitable technology, such as aplasma display. Further, the display screen 110 may be a monitor such asis conventionally used with a personal computer, or may be atelevision-type display.

The processing portion 112 may include any suitable combination ofhardware, software, and/or firmware. In accordance with one example, theprocessing portion 112 and the display screen 110 may be implemented asdescribed below in conjunction with FIG. 8. As described below, theprocessing portion 112 is configured to display information in twodistinct sections on the display screen 110. For example, the processingportion 112 may partition the display screen 110 into a requestedcontent section 114 and an auxiliary information section 116. Asdescribed below, this partitioning may be sized, shaped, and located inany manner desired and carried out by the processing portion 112 in amanner that is not modifiable by the end user of the terminal 102. Thus,the end user of the terminal 102 will not be able to eliminate theauxiliary information section 116 from the display screen 110. In oneexample described below, the partitioning carried out by the processingportion 112 provides dynamic information throughout an entire operatingsystem (OS) deployment through the case of billboard services in afirmware virtual machine manager. Such an example arrangement allows forthe provision of continuous auxiliary information, which, if desired,may be real-time, dynamic information. Additionally, in examples withthe VMM obtaining and presenting the auxiliary information, suchactivities are OS agnostic and, therefore, it does not matter whetherthe terminal (e.g., the terminal 102 of FIG. 1) uses a Windows-type OS,a Linux-type OS, or any other OS.

The server 104 may be any computing device suitable to provideinformation to the terminal 102. In one example implementation, theserver 104 may have the architecture shown in FIG. 8. In the example ofFIG. 1, the server 104 has access to auxiliary information storage 118that is used to store information that may be presented in the auxiliaryinformation section 116 of the display screen 110. Thus, in contrast topop-up advertisements from an Internet browser, which are out ofadministrators' control, the provision of information in the auxiliaryinformation section 116 is completely under the control of the entitythat manages information on the auxiliary information storage 118.

The auxiliary information storage 118 may be located proximate theserver 104, such as on a mass storage device of the server.Alternatively, the auxiliary information storage 118 may be networked tothe server 104 using, for example, either or both of the networks 106,108. For example, the auxiliary information storage 118 may reside onanother server that is coupled to the server 104 via the network 108.Alternatively or additionally, more than one storage medium may be usedto implement the information storage 118. For example, the auxiliaryinformation storage 118 may be implemented as one or more networked harddrives storing databases or other data constructs including theauxiliary information.

The information stored on the auxiliary information storage 118 may beof any suitable nature, such as, for example, advertisements, servicebulletins, or any other content including text and/or graphics.Additionally, the auxiliary information may be plain text, figures,voice, or multi-media. Information may be selected for storage on theauxiliary information storage 118 by a network operator (e.g., an I-caféowner, an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), an Internet serviceprovider, etc.), a network administrator, and/or an advertiser. Suchentities may control the addition and removal of content from theauxiliary information storage 118 from a remote location, such as acomputer terminal located remotely from the auxiliary informationstorage 118. In such an arrangement, such entities may upload content tothe auxiliary information storage 118 so that the uploaded content maybe subsequently retrieved and displayed in the auxiliary informationsection 116 of the display screen 110.

As shown in FIG. 2, a graphics processing arrangement 200 includes adisplay attribute determiner 202, a local graphics reader 204, anauxiliary graphics reader 206, a graphics renderer 208, and an inputdevice processor 210. As will be readily appreciated by those havingordinary skill in the art, items 202, 204, 206, 208, and 210 may beimplemented exclusively by hardware and/or by hardware executingsoftware and/or firmware and/or by any combination of hardware,software, and/or firmware that may be implemented on, for example, theterminal 102 of FIG. 1. Additionally, some of the items of FIG. 2 may beimplemented in a pre-boot (i.e., pre-OS) environment, whereas some itemsmay be implemented in a post-boot (i.e., runtime) environment.

In operation, the display attribute determiner 202, which may beimplemented with the pre-boot environment, receives information from thesystem (e.g., from system hardware, software, and/or firmware) anddetermines attributes for displaying information on the display screen.In particular, the display attribute determiner 202 may determineavailable display space for displaying local graphics information, suchas graphics related to a software application being operated by the userof the terminal 102 of FIG. 1. In an example implementation, the displayattribute determiner 202 may determine that a display screen supports aresolution of 1600×1200 pixels in size, but that a portion of that sizeis to be reserved for auxiliary information. Thus, the display attributedeterminer 202 may determine that only 1280×1024 pixels are allocated tothe display of information requested by the user of the terminal 102 andthat the balance of the display screen is reserved for the display ofauxiliary information, hereby determining the location and size of theauxiliary information section 116. The display attribute determiner 202passes the display screen information to the graphics renderer 208 andthe input device processor 210, the functionality of each of which isdescribed below.

The local graphics reader 204 receives from a local graphic processingsystem graphics corresponding to content to be displayed in response tothe actions of the user of the terminal 102. For example, if theterminal user has requested the display of a particular Internet webpage or the use of a particular software application, the local graphicsreader 204 receives data corresponding to the visual contentcorresponding to the Internet web page or the software application andpasses this content to the graphics renderer 208. The informationprovided to the graphics renderer 208 by the local graphics reader 204may have dimension information included therein and such dimensioninformation may be adjusted within the graphics renderer 208 inaccordance with the information provided to the graphics renderer 208 bythe display attribute determiner 202.

The auxiliary graphics reader 206 receives auxiliary information fromthe auxiliary information storage 118, which as described in conjunctionwith FIG. 1, may be coupled to the terminal 102 via a server 104 and oneor more networks 106, 108. The auxiliary information may be, forexample, text or graphics information and may include information thatis purely informational (e.g., weather reports, store hours, etc.) ormay include advertising information such as promotional information andthe like. The auxiliary graphics reader 206 passes the auxiliaryinformation to the graphics renderer 208. As with the information fromthe local graphics reader 204, the information from the auxiliarygraphics reader 206 may include dimensional information in addition tothe graphics and/or text information. This dimensional information maybe adjusted by the graphics renderer 208 in accordance with theinformation the graphics renderer 208 receives from the displayattribute determiner 202.

As described above, the graphics renderer 208 receives information fromboth the local graphics reader 204 and the auxiliary graphics reader206. This information (i.e.,) information provided in response to userinput and auxiliary information, is modified for display on a singlescreen by the graphics renderer 208. For example, because the displayattribute determiner 202 informed the graphics renderer 208 that thedisplay screen was 1600×1200 pixels in size, but that only 1280×1024pixels of that display screen is allocated to local graphics, thegraphics renderer 208, in one example, adjusts the size and location ofthe information from the local graphics reader 204 so that suchinformation may be located properly on the display screen. Additionally,the graphics renderer 208 may modify the auxiliary information to fitthe balance of the 1600×1200 pixel screen size that is not occupied bythe 1280×1024 pixels of local graphics information.

Although the provided example includes screen dimensions of 1600×1200pixels and an allocation of 1280×1024 pixels for the display of therequested information, thereby leaving the balance of the display screenfor auxiliary information, such an example is only a manner ofallocating screen space. In fact, any allocation of screen space iscontemplated. For example, the requested content section 114 may besmaller or larger than the auxiliary information section 116.Additionally, the location of the auxiliary information section 116 maybe above, below or to the left or right of the requested content section114. Further, matter of the sections 114, 116 need be rectangularlyshaped. In fact, the sections could be square shaped, L-shaped, or anyother suitable shape.

The input device processor 210 receives information from an inputdevice, such as a mouse or any other input device, and also receivesinformation regarding various screen section dimensions and locationsfrom the display attribute determiner 202. The input device processor210 handles generation of information representing the on-screenmovement corresponding to an input device, such as, for example, themovement of a cursor on a screen in response to a user's movement of amouse input device. In particular, the input device processor 210handles the transitions between screen sections (i.e., between therequested content section 114 and the auxiliary information section 116)because, as described herein, the administration of such sections may behandled by different entities such as a VMM or a Virtual Machine (VM).The information representative of where a cursor or any other visualindicator should be displayed is passed from the input device processor210 to the graphics renderer 208 so that the visual indicator may bedisplayed on the screen.

In one example, the processing portion 112 of the terminal 102 of FIG. 1may have an architecture 300, such as that shown in FIG. 3. Inparticular, the architecture 300 may be based on a virtual threadingprocessor/chipset 302 on which a VMM 304 operates. The VMM 304 supportsone or more VM, one of which is shown at reference numeral 306 in FIG.3. In one example, the VM 306 includes firmware 308 and an OS 310, whichincludes one or more device drivers 312 and one or more userapplications 314.

The virtual threading processor/chipset 302 is a device or set ofdevices capable of supporting multiple threads of software execution,wherein computational resources are selectively allocated to the variousthreads of execution. One example virtual threading processor/chipset isthe Intel Pentium 4 processor.

In one example, the VMM 304 is hardware executing software and/orfirmware. As explained below, instructions may be stored in memory andexecuted by a processor to implement the VMM 304, as well as to controlthe functionality of the VMM 304. As will be readily appreciated bythose having ordinary skill in the art, the VMM 304 erects and maintainsa framework for managing virtual machines. In particular, the VMM 304provides memory management, interrupt handling, and thread schedulingservices to the virtual machines (e.g., the VM 306) it supports.

As described below in detail, the VMM 304 may report to the VM 306 theresources available for the execution of program instructions and/or theresources available for display of information. To that end, the VMM 304may inform the VM 306 that a subset of resources is available when, inreality, the resources are fully available. For example, the VMM 304 mayreport to the VM 306 that the display screen resolution is 1280×1024pixels in size when, in reality, the display screen is 1600×1200 pixelsin size. By underreporting to the VM 306 the resources that areavailable, the VMM 304 can reserve such resources for its own use.

The VM 306 may be implemented using a dynamic programming language suchas, for example, Java and for C#. A software engine (e.g., a JavaVirtual Machine (JVM) and Microsoft .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR),etc.), which is commonly referred to as a runtime environment, executesthe dynamic program language instructions of the managed application.The VM 306 interfaces dynamic program language instructions (e.g., aJava program or source code) to be executed and to a target platform(i.e., the virtual threading processor/chipset 302 and the OS 310) sothat the dynamic program can be executed in a platform independentmanner.

Dynamic program language instructions (e.g., Java instructions) are notstatically compiled and linked directly into native or machine code forexecution by the target platform (i.e., the operating system andhardware of the target processing system or platform). Native code ormachine code is code that is compiled down to methods or instructionsthat are specific to the operating system and/or processor. In contrast,dynamic program language instructions are statically compiled into anintermediate language (e.g., bytecodes), which may interpreted orsubsequently compiled by a just-in-time (JIT) compiler into native ormachine code that can be executed by the target processing system orplatform. Typically, the JIT compiler is provided by the VM that ishosted by the operating system of a target processing platform such as,for example, a computer system. Thus, the VM and, in particular, the JITcompiler, translates platform independent program instructions (e.g.,Java bytecodes, Common Intermediate Language (CIL), etc.) into nativecode (i.e., machine code that can be executed by the virtual threadingprocessor/chipset 302.

The firmware 308 within the VM 306 may be programmed to carryout tasksfor the VM 306 prior to the VM 306 booting the OS 310 and its attendantdevice drivers 312 and user applications 314. For example, the firmware308 may be responsible for interfacing with the VMM 304 to determine thecapabilities of hardware coupled to the virtual threadingprocessor/chipset 302. In particular, as described below, the firmware308 may request an indication of display screen resolution from the VMM304. The firmware 308 may store the resource indications in a memory(e.g., random access memory (RAM)), so that when the OS 310 boots, theOS 310 will be aware of the system resources at its disposal.

As will be readily appreciated by those having ordinary skill in theart, the OS 310 may include the device drivers 312 that are incommunication with the user applications 314. The loading of the OS 310causes the architecture 300 to leave the pre-boot phase of operating andto enter the runtime operating phase. The OS 310 learns what resourcesare at its disposal by reading the memory locations into which thefirmware 308 stored the system information provided by the VMM 304.Alternatively, the OS 310 may communicate directly with the VMM 304 toobtain an indication of the available resources. The OS 306 is told whathardware resources are available by either the memory manipulated by thefirmware 308 or by the VMM 304 and, thus, the OS 306 may be under anassumption that fewer or different resources are available than thoseresource actually available. For example, the memory location associatedwith the system and/or the VMM 304 may inform the OS 310 that theavailable space on the display screen is smaller than the actualavailable space on the display screen. Thus, the OS 310 will onlyattempt to write graphics to the reduced available space, therebyleaving a portion of the available space for other use by another entitysuch as the VMM 304.

Having described the architecture of one example system that may be usedto provide dynamic messaging services, various processes are described.Although the following discloses example processes, it should be notedthat these processes may be implemented in any suitable manner. Forexample, the processes may be implemented using, among other components,software, or firmware executed on hardware. However, this is merely oneexample and it is contemplated that any form of logic may be used toimplement the systems or subsystems disclosed herein. Logic may include,for example, implementations that are made exclusively in dedicatedhardware (e.g., circuits, transistors, logic gates, hard-codedprocessors, programmable array logic (PAL), application-specificintegrated circuits (ASICs), etc.) exclusively in software, exclusivelyin firmware, or some combination of hardware, firmware, and/or software.Additionally, some portions of the process may be carried out manually.Furthermore, while each of the processes described herein is shown in aparticular order, those having ordinary skill in the art will readilyrecognize that such an ordering is merely one example and numerous otherorders exist. Accordingly, while the following describes exampleprocesses, persons of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciatethat the examples are not the only way to implement such processes.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a power-up process 400 that may be carried outby a terminal, such as the terminal 102 of FIG. 1, is shown. Inparticular, the process 400 may be carried out by a processor system,such as the processor system 800 of FIG. 8. The power-up process 400begins when the system powers on (block 402), which may be due to apower cycle event or due to a reset event. After the system power on(block 402), the process 400 initializes a VMM (block 404) to handle theresource allocation for one or more VMs.

After the VMM has been initialized 404, one or more VMs are launched(block 406). The process 400 then determines if the VMM billboard isenabled (block 408). The VMM billboard is a reference to dedicatedscreen space (i.e., the auxiliary information space 116 on the displayscreen 110 of FIG. 1) that is allocated to the display of auxiliaryinformation.

If the VMM billboard is not enabled (block 408), the process continuesits normal booting operation by booting a target OS (block 410) andcontinuing normal operation (block 412) until the OS shuts down (block414). When the OS shuts down (block 414), the system powers off (block416) and the process 400 ends.

Alternatively, if the VMM billboard is enabled (block 408), a VMMinformation handling process (block 418) is started. The VMM informationhandling process (block 418) may be carried out by the VMM, such as theVMM initialized at block 404 of FIG. 4.

As shown in FIG. 5 in further detail, according to one example, the VMMinformation handling process 418 begins by restricting the supporteddimensions that are reported when an OS seeks to determine the supporteddimensions of the display screen (block 502). According to one example,the process 418 may query hardware, such as a graphics display card, todetermine the resolution and dimensional capabilities of such hardware.The supported dimensions are then restricted in accordance with thescreen space that is to be allocated to the auxiliary information. Forexample, if the supported dimensions are 1600×1200 pixels, the process418 may report that the supported dimension is 1280×1024 pixels. Thus,when the OS and its attendant hardware and software of a VM prepare todisplay information on the screen, the dimensions used for displayinginformation on the screen are 1280×1024 pixels.

After the supported dimensions have been restricted (block 502), atarget is booted (block 504). The booting of the target causes an OS tobe loaded on a VM, such as one of the VMs launched at block 406 of FIG.4.

After or during booting of the target (block 504), the networkconnection is set up (block 506) to provide the process 418 access toauxiliary information, such as auxiliary information stored in theauxiliary information storage 118 of FIG. 1. For example, with referenceto FIG. 1, the network connection may connect the terminal 102 to eitheror both of the network 106 and/or the network 108. The process thendetermines if the network setup attempted at block 506 failed (block508). If the network setup failed (block 508), the system continuesnormal operation in the OS present domain (block 412 of FIG. 4).

If, however, the network setup did not fail (block 508) the process 418attempts to connect to the auxiliary information storage (block 510) andthe process 418 determines whether the connection to the auxiliaryinformation storage failed (block 512). If the connection to theauxiliary information storage failed (block 512), the system continuesnormal operation in the OS present domain (block 412 of FIG. 4).

Alternatively, if the connection to the auxiliary information storagedid not fail (block 512), the process 418 initiates the OS cursormanagement process (block 514). The initiation of the process 514 mayinclude passing a request or instruction from the VMM to the VM runningthe OS so that the OS can run the OS cursor management process 514.After the OS cursor management process 514 is initiated, the process 418commences a VMM cursor management process 516. Further detail regardingeach of the processes 514 and 516 is provided below in conjunction withFIGS. 6 and 7.

Once the cursor management processes 514 and 516 have been initiated,the process 418 obtains and displays the auxiliary information (block518). In one example, obtaining the auxiliary information may includedownloading the auxiliary information from a remote physical locationsuch as the auxiliary information storage and/or may include recallingthe auxiliary information from a location that is local to the terminal102. In one example, the auxiliary information that is obtained may bepersonal in nature and may be keyed to a login type or username used tolog into the terminal 102 of FIG. 1. For example, if an I-Café ownerregisters users with some demographic information such as age/job/schoolmajor/etc., the auxiliary information may be targeted to that user whenthe user arrives at the terminal in question.

After auxiliary information is displayed (block 518), the process 418determines whether new auxiliary information is available (block 520).If no new auxiliary information is available (block 520), the process418 continues to display the previously-obtained auxiliary information(block 518). However, if new auxiliary information is available (block520), the process 418 obtains the new auxiliary information (block 522)and, if the OS is not going to shut down (block 524), displays theauxiliary information obtained at block 522. In one example, theoriginally obtained auxiliary information may be continuously displayeduntil a user clicks or otherwise selects the auxiliary informationsection 116 of FIG. 1. As noted above, the process 418 may obtain theauxiliary information by downloading and/or recalling the auxiliaryinformation from memory.

If, however, the process 418 determines that the OS is to be shut down(block 524), the OS shuts down and the system powers off as shown atblock 416 of FIG. 4.

While the foregoing describes an example in which auxiliary informationis handled by a VMM, other techniques for handling auxiliary informationare possible. For example, a second virtual machine may be provided andthe VMM may restrict the supported dimensions of the second virtualmachine. Thus, the VMM may determine the overall dimensions supported bythe display device and may partition the supported dimensions of thedisplay by restricting the dimensions provided to each of the first andsecond virtual machines. In this way, the first virtual machine mayprovide content for a first portion of the display screen (e.g., therequested content) and the second virtual machine may provide contentfor a second portion of the display screen (e.g., the auxiliarycontent).

Example OS and VMM cursor management processes are now described infurther detail. In general, when the cursor lies within the screenboundary allocated to the OS and the VM, the cursor is made visible bythe OS. However, when the user attempts to move the cursor off thescreen allocated to the OS and VM and into the screen portion allocatedto the auxiliary information and the VMM, the OS makes the cursorinvisible within the screen allocated to the OS so that the cursor doesnot appear to be stuck at the boundary separating the screen portionallocated to the OS.

As shown in FIG. 6, the OS cursor management process 514 begins bydetermining the boundaries for the screen allocated to the OS (block602). The process 514 then determines if the desired cursor positiondesired by the user is outside the boundaries (block 604). The desiredcursor position may be determined by tracking the cursor position andthe extent to which the user has moved the mouse a distance past theboundary between the desired content section (e.g., the section 114 ofFIG. 1) and an auxiliary information section (e.g., the section 116 ofFIG. 1). If the desired cursor position is outside the boundary, the OSmakes the cursor invisible by making the coloring and texturing of thecursor match the coloring and texturing of the graphics behind thecursor (block 606). In the alternative, if the desired cursor positionis not outside the boundaries (block 604), the process 514 makes thecursor visible (block 608). After the cursor is made visible, othercursor functions are carried out (block 610), which may includeconventional cursor functions that are performed by an OS to providecursor functionality.

As shown in FIG. 7, in one example the VMM cursor management process 516determines the screen boundaries that were passed to the OS (block 702).This determination identifies the location of the desired contentsection and the location of the auxiliary information section. Theprocess 516 then determines whether the cursor is in a position outsidethe boundaries (i.e., that the cursor is within the auxiliaryinformation section (block 704). If the cursor is not outside theboundaries (i.e., is within the desired content section) (block 704),the process 516 makes the cursor invisible (block 706) so that when thecursor is within the desired content section, another cursor is notshown at the boundary the desired content section and the auxiliaryinformation section. The techniques for making the cursor invisible arewell known, some of which are described above.

When the cursor transitions to a location outside the boundaries (i.e.,the cursor is outside of the desired content section and, therefore, isinside of the auxiliary information section) (block 704), the process516 makes the cursor visible (block 708). Optionally, when the cursor iswithin the auxiliary information section, subsequent or differentinformation may be loaded into the auxiliary information section inresponse to a user click within the auxiliary information section (block710).

As shown in FIG. 8, an example processor system 800, includes aprocessor 802 having associated memories 804, such as a random accessmemory (RAM) 806, a read only memory (ROM) 808, and a flash memory 810.The flash memory 810 of the illustrated example includes a boot block812. The processor 802 is coupled to an interface, such as a bus 820 towhich other components may be interfaced. In the illustrated example,the components interfaced to the bus 820 include an input device 822, adisplay device 824, a mass storage device 826, and a removable storagedevice drive 828. The removable storage device drive 828 may includeassociated removable storage media (not shown), such as magnetic oroptical media. The processor system 800 may also include a networkadapter 830.

The example processor system 800 may be, for example, a server, a remotedevice, a conventional desktop personal computer, a notebook computer, aworkstation or any other computing device. The processor 802 may be anytype of processing unit, such as a microprocessor from the Intel®Pentium® family of microprocessors, the Intel® Itanium® family ofmicroprocessors, and/or the Intel XScale® family of processors. Theprocessor 802 may include on-board analog-to-digital (A/D) anddigital-to-analog (D/A) converters.

The memories 804 that are coupled to the processor 802 may be anysuitable memory devices and may be sized to fit the storage andoperational demands of the system 800. In particular, the flash memory810 may be a non-volatile memory that is accessed and erased on ablock-by-block basis.

The input device 822 may be implemented using a keyboard, a mouse, atouch screen, a track pad or any other device that enables a user toprovide information to the processor 802.

The display device 824 may be, for example, a liquid crystal display(LCD) monitor, a cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor or any other suitabledevice that acts as an interface between the processor 802 and a user.The display device 824 includes any additional hardware required tointerface a display screen to the processor 802.

The mass storage device 826 may be, for example, a conventional harddrive or any other magnetic or optical media that is readable by theprocessor 802.

The removable storage device drive 828 may be, for example, an opticaldrive, such as a compact disk-recordable (CD-R) drive, a compactdisk-rewritable (CD-RW) drive, a digital versatile disk (DVD) drive, orany other optical drive. The removable storage device drive 828 mayalternatively be, for example, a magnetic media drive. If the removablestorage device drive 828 is an optical drive, the removable storagemedia used by the drive 828 may be a CD-R disk, a CD-RW disk, a DVD diskor any other suitable optical disk. On the other hand, if the removablestorage device drive 48 is a magnetic media device, the removablestorage media used by the drive 828 may be, for example, a diskette orany other suitable magnetic storage media.

The network adapter 830 may be any suitable network interface such as,for example, an Ethernet card, a wireless network card, a modem, or anyother network interface suitable to connect the processor system 800 toa network 832. The network 832 to which the processor system 800 isconnected may be, for example, a local area network (LAN), a wide areanetwork (WAN), the Internet, or any other network. For example, thenetwork could be a home network, a intranet located in a place ofbusiness, a closed network linking various locations of a business, orthe Internet.

Although certain apparatus constructed in accordance with the teachingsof the invention have been described herein, the scope of coverage ofthis patent is not limited thereto. On the contrary, this patent coversevery apparatus, method and article of manufacture fairly falling withinthe scope of the appended claims either literally or under the doctrineof equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of displaying information on a displayscreen, the method comprising: determining, in a pre-boot environment,supported dimensions for display of information on the display screen;generating, in the pre-boot environment, restricted dimensions that areless than the supported dimensions; providing the restricted dimensionsto an operating system of a virtual machine supported by a virtualmachine manager, wherein the restricted dimensions define a boundarybetween a first screen portion and a second screen portion; displayingfirst information in the first screen portion and displaying secondinformation in the second screen portion; and preventing, via thevirtual machine manager, elimination of the first screen portion fromthe display screen.
 2. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein the firstinformation is provided by an administrator of the display screen.
 3. Amethod as defined in claim 1, wherein preventing elimination of thefirst screen portion comprises preventing, via the virtual machinemanager, a user of the display screen from eliminating the first screenportion.
 4. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein the virtual machinemanager is at an architecture level that is not accessible by the userof the display screen.
 5. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein thevirtual machine manager operates on a virtual threading processor.
 6. Amethod as defined in claim 1, wherein displaying the first informationcomprises displaying the first information via the virtual machinemanager using resources that are not available to the virtual machine.7. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising determiningwhether a virtual machine manager billboard is enabled, whereingenerating the restricted dimensions the supported dimensions andpassing the restricted dimensions is performed when the virtual machinemanager billboard is enabled.
 8. A method as defined in claim 1, furthercomprising: providing second restricted dimensions to a second virtualmachine; and providing the second information to the second virtualmachine, the second virtual machine to display the second information inthe second screen portion.
 9. A system, comprising: a display attributedeterminer to determine, in a pre-boot environment, supported dimensionsfor display of information on a display screen, and to generaterestricted dimensions that are less than the supported dimensions,wherein the restricted dimensions define a boundary between a firstscreen portion and a second screen portion of the display screen; avirtual machine manager to provide the restricted dimensions to anoperating system of a virtual machine supported by the virtual machinemanager, and to prevent elimination of the first screen portion from thedisplay screen; and a graphics renderer to display first information inthe first screen portion and display second information in the secondscreen portion.
 10. A system as defined in claim 9, wherein the virtualmachine manager is to provide second restricted dimensions to a secondvirtual machine and provide the second information to the second virtualmachine, the second virtual machine to display the second information inthe second screen portion.
 11. A system as defined in claim 9, whereinthe virtual machine manager is to prevent elimination of the firstscreen portion by an end user of the display screen.
 12. A system asdefined in claim 9, wherein the virtual machine manager is to reservecomputing resources associated with a difference between the supporteddimensions and the restricted dimensions for non-virtual machineprocesses.
 13. A system as defined in claim 9, wherein the virtualmachine manager is at an architecture level of the system that is notaccessible by the user of the display screen.
 14. A computer readablestorage medium comprising computer readable instructions which, whenexecuted, cause a processor to: determine, in a pre-boot environment,supported dimensions for display of information on a display screen;generate, in the pre-boot environment, restricted dimensions that areless than the supported dimensions; provide the restricted dimensions toan operating system of a virtual machine supported by a virtual machinemanager, wherein the restricted dimensions define a boundary between afirst screen portion and a second screen portion; display firstinformation in the first screen portion and displaying secondinformation in the second screen portion; and prevent, via the virtualmachine manager, elimination of the first screen portion from thedisplay screen.
 15. A storage medium as defined in claim 14, wherein thefirst information is provided by an administrator of the display screen.16. A storage medium as defined in claim 14, wherein the virtual machinemanager is at an architecture level that is not accessible by the userof the display screen.
 17. A storage medium as defined in claim 14,wherein the virtual machine manager operates on a virtual threadingprocessor.
 18. A storage medium as defined in claim 14, whereindisplaying the first information comprises displaying the firstinformation via the virtual machine manager using resources that are notavailable to the virtual machine.
 19. A storage medium as defined inclaim 14, wherein the instructions are further to cause the processorto: provide second restricted dimensions to a second virtual machine;and provide the second information to the second virtual machine, thesecond virtual machine to display the second information in the secondscreen portion.
 20. A storage medium as defined in claim 14, whereininstructions are to cause the virtual machine manager to preventelimination of the first screen portion by a user of the display screen.21. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising modifying thefirst information from first dimensions to fit within the first screenportion, the first dimensions being different than the first screenportion.